Becoming the Great Wave

I was determined to discuss a watercolour today but my eyes don't seem to be as interested in the medium as usual so I had to settle for something else. This 'something else' is quite significant in the world of art and can also be seen in too many totally irrelevant places. 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa' by Hokusai is one of those classic Japanese prints that retains its uniqueness and power to this day.

I see it in the form of a regular postcard that is stuck on my wall beside a great number of postcards of equal size. Despite this uniformity, 'The Great Wave' dominates the eye because it is so dramatic and bold compared to the hazy Dutch landscapes and Michelangelo sketches that surround it. Even a vivid painting by Rubens cannot compete.

The only reasonable explanation for this would be its relative simplicity in terms of line, colour and composition compared to other works of art. Of course, if I were comparing it to works by Hiroshige - another great Japanese aritst - it would be a different matter since it is characteristic of most oriental art to prefer purity over complexity. The visual simplicity does not undermine the effect 'The Great Wave' has on the viewer and I would not hesitate in comparing it to similar disaster paintings by Turner or Gericault - near contemporaries of Hokusai.

The form of the 'great wave' itself has become iconic: the way it claws down at the helpless sailors below is monstrous in the most literal sense and we are reminded of Ruskin's ideas of pathetic fallacy - nature taking on human or animal form. Herbert Read is one critic who has gone so far as to suggest that we empathise not only with the human figures depicted, but also with the wave itself:

'If we look at this Japanese print, out attention might be taken by the men in the boats, and we should then feel sympathy for them in their danger; but contemplating the print as a work of art, our feelings are absorbed by the sweep of the enormous wave. We enter into its upswelling movement, we feel the tension between its heave and the force of gravity, and as the crest breaks into foam, we feel that we ourselves are stretching angry claws against the alien objects beneath us.'

Everything about this print seems to beg empathy which is why it has such a powerful effect on the viewer. The near-disguised Mount Fuji in the background suddenly becomes meek and vulnerable - thus embodying human emotion. Even the misty cloud-form in the pink sky seems to resemble a human figure soaring away from the scene. With one circular sweep, Hokusai leads us through each element of the print, from the human figure and up through the claws of the wave. We are then thrust into the sky along with the cloud-form and drop like sea-foam into the distant Mount Fuji. In a matter of seconds, the viewer is transported many miles through many different elements and are left feeling rather overwhelmed by the experience.

To have achieved so much with so little is sign of true greatness.

'Morgen im Riesengebirge' by Caspar David Friedrich

There is this painting that I'd like to openly examine. I am currently looking at the works of Caspar David Friedrich and although this isn't one of the paintings that I am particularly interested in, it follows several of the prominent themes that I will be looking at. It is also very beautiful. It is called 'Morgen im Riesengebirge'.
Although it is typical for the viewer to be drawn first to the subject matter before the surrounding background, Friedrich's figures are too minute to overcome the overwhelming dominance of the landscape that they are in. We are met with a breathtaking view of mountain peaks that emerge from a sea of mist and recede into the far distance. At the center of the painting, joining the vast blue sky and land, is the sun that almost blinds us with its sheer brightness.
This sun - a feature that one cannot bear to look at for too long - is undoubtedly the focal point of the painting and the figures seem insignificant in comparison. Almost too far from our view to be clearly identified, there is a girl in a white dress helping a man up to a wayside cross that stands majestically, yet obscurely, above the landscape. It faces, and is level with, the sun which seems to suggest that the latter symbolises God. It is not at all unusual of Friedrich to use the sun as a metaphor for God and it reveals a great deal about his pantheistic tendencies, which emphasises the omnipresence of God in nature.
Furthermore, Friedrich emphasises the inability of man to grasp the absolute essence of either God or nature: the mountains disappear from our view, thus playing on our short-sightedness, and the sun is simply too dazzling to gaze on for long. The struggle that the two figures in the painting undergo in order to reach the wayside cross - a mere object in comparison to the true substance of religion, represented by the sun - reveals the limitations that face man in his yearning for the absolute. As with the viewer, the figures can only gain a glimpse of their surroundings - not grasp and become one with it.
There are probably political ideas that could be read into this painting as have been done to many of Friedrich's other paintings. However, I choose to ignore them for now since such ideas tend to be a little ambiguous. Politics never really suited the Romantics in my opinion anyhow...except for one which I will discuss another time.